


Play On

by magelette



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-20
Updated: 2011-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magelette/pseuds/magelette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If music be the food of love, play on... River, and the voices that haunt her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play On

Voices warred in her head until she was confused. These were times and faces she couldn't remember except in vague images: a sweep of long red hair, a black eye patch, stars whirling overhead. The voices, though, were constant. Clear. Her companions.

The first, she knew, was her mother's. The voice spoke to her in the darkest, loneliest nights, ragged and rough with emotion. It spoke of love and waiting and how, someday, all would be made right. The voice, tinged with regret and loss and eternal patience, inspired her to fight.

The second whispered sweetly. She could never remember the words, honey-like and cloying, except that they twisted inside her. This voice gave her ideas and fought to drown out the first. Give up, give in, it suggested.

The third never used words. The third sang to her as a lullaby, surrounding her in warm light.

She knew, years later, her mother's voice and that flip of hair, red as the heart. She knew, from the holovid, Kovarian's smirk and the whispered lies of the Silence. The song, though, that enveloped her and surrounded her and created her, was a mystery until she stepped into that bright blue box on her third regeneration. Her early years, by chance or by choice, would always remain a haze of mind control and post-hypnotic suggestion. Her relationships with the first two voices -- her mothers both -- would always be complicated. The song, though, echoed through her very being the moment she crossed the blue box's threshold. There was no anger or justification. Sorrow and regret, but also welcome back and home. This is where you belong, the Tardis sang. You are my child, you were born here, and here is where you'll always be.

Found, the song sang.

Never lost again.


End file.
